The snow over the garrison lawn looked like frosting on cake. He stomped through the white to an inner courtyard laced with hemlock. Once he reached the Hall of the Knights, he hung his greatcoat on an iron rack and stamped leftover snow from his boots.
His father, Alastair Denton, glared from over the grand dining table, now used as a workbench for the Ahnenerbe institute. Alastair was a virologist, although he often referred to himself as more of a paleontologist. He spent all his time searching for fossils. Of course these particular fossils were in rocks from outer space or something.
Alastair was there because he’d found strong links between the Tunguska impactor in 1908 and the Spanish flu in 1918. He had proven to the Führer’s men that the influenza virus originated from the sky. A comet called Encke sprinkled the virus into the atmosphere, where it had infected birds, which had in turn infected humans. The Nazis were searching the world afar for evidence of Aryan purity. In doing so, they uncovered a few things of interest to Denton’s father. For one, not all viruses clogged you with mucus.
‘I hear the institute in Ulm discovered the fountain of youth serum,’ Denton said. ‘Now that’s something useful. Why don’t we do something like that?’
‘Because,’ Alastair said, ‘there are several versions of the serum, not all of them were improvements.’
‘All you need is one.’
Alastair ignored him. ‘Give it one tooth more,’ he said in German.
He was instructing Victor, the German mineralogist Denton had plucked from Norway.
Denton walked the length of the table. Alastair had acknowledged his presence and wouldn’t do so again. He was busy with Victor and Victor was busy mixing fragments of the rock with liquids. Victor seemed surprised when nothing happened. Denton wasn’t.
For a moment, Denton thought he might go back out and lie in the snow. Instead he strode past them, boots echoing off the stone floor.
‘If you’re thinking of visiting the wine cellar, you needn’t bother,’ Alastair said, still in German. ‘I’ve had the wine moved.’
Denton turned just enough to talk over his shoulder to his father. ‘I wouldn’t think of it,’ he said. ‘Although wine is of course how knights maintained their daily fluids.’
‘Fortunate then that you’re an OSS officer,’ Alastair said in English.
Not that English mattered. Everyone here knew who they were.
‘My apologies,’ Denton said. ‘Your list of housekeeping duties had me thinking otherwise.’
‘Just because you graduated from the school of mayhem and murder doesn’t mean you’re above making your own bed.’
‘Assassination and elimination program,’ Denton said. ‘And I sleep in a hammock.’
‘Of course,’ Alastair said. ‘Well, I cannot have you intoxicated when the director visits today.’
Denton raised an eyebrow. ‘I thought that would be advisable.’
Both his father and Victor stared at him.
Denton felt his stomach knot. ‘He’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ Alastair said.
Stepping to one side, Denton locked gazes with the director. ‘Standartenführer,’ he said. ‘Your mustache is especially waxed today. Is this a special occasion?’
Sievers, the Director of the Ahnenerbe, stared down his nose at Denton, which was difficult since Denton was the same height. Colonel Wolfram Sievers was wearing his white uniform today, contrasting against the coal black of his two SS bodyguards. He still maintained a beard, his hair carefully combed with Brylcreem. Sievers had fewer wrinkles today and Denton wondered if he was wearing makeup.
‘You tell me,’ Sievers said, also in English.
Sievers and his bodyguards migrated past him to the long table. Denton decided to remain where he was, on their periphery, so he could leave later without anyone noticing.
‘We’ve found something,’ Alastair said.
Sievers seemed as unimpressed as Denton, but that didn’t deter Alastair.
‘We’ve identified and tested the virus,’ he said. ‘The prisoners are alive and in good health.’
Sievers clasped his hands at the small of his back. ‘Were they sufficiently exposed?’
‘Twice,’ his father said. ‘And this was from the mountains in Tibet, correct?’
Sievers didn’t respond. Denton inched closer, admittedly a bit curious. He watched Sievers leaf through the ancient Chinese textbook, kept as usual at his father’s elbow. The silk pages and matching German translations lived in rigid plastic sleeves. Sievers’s expedition team had discovered the cache of texts two years earlier. They’d since translated the lot into German. The books were two thousand years old. They covered everything from military strategy to mathematics, archery to music, ritual to meteors. The meteor textbook in particular was the reason they were here. Although twice Denton had caught his father reading the translations on military strategy. Perhaps he’d regretted his career choice as an expert on the sniffles.
‘What makes you so sure?’ Sievers said. ‘There are twenty-nine different types of meteorites in this book. Twenty-six of them bring plague and disaster.’
‘And three don’t,’ Denton’s father said.
‘Der Phönix,’ Victor said.
The Phoenix.
‘Those three were observed at pivotal points in history,’ Alastair said.
‘We are at a pivotal point in history now,’ Sievers said.
‘This rock you found in Tibet, I’m certain it has what I’m looking for,’ Alastair said.
‘Have you observed any promising behavior from the prisoners?’Sievers said.
‘Not yet, Colonel.’
‘Then why are you so sure this is your rock?’ Sievers asked. ‘You said this about the previous five samples I gave you.’
‘This rock,’ Alastair said, gesturing to the pieces of dissected rock and the equipment they were using to analyze it, ‘has a dangerous history.’
‘I need specifics,’ Sievers said. ‘Why is this rock so dangerous?’
‘In the thirteenth century, a Mongol General conquered more countries than anyone else in history,’ Alastair said. ‘He coordinated armies hundreds of miles apart. He took Hungary and Poland in forty-eight hours. He conquered China. And he did all of this after narrowly missing a meteor fragment that fell from the sky. He wrote about this and it’s on record. He considered it an omen.’
‘Centuries ago, a large comet burned through the sky,’ Sievers said. ‘It was seen by many people and later inspired the swastika symbol. But that does not make the comet or meteor itself special.’
‘But it does,’ Alastair said. ‘Another man. An alchemist from China, hired by the Emperor to make him immortal. The alchemist was studying a skystone when the Mongol General invaded the capital and found him. The alchemist had no combat experience and possessed nothing that might injure a man, let alone kill him. And yet, he alone killed the most dangerous General in the world. With an axe through his back. Well, almost.’
‘A master tactician killed by a wizard?’ Denton raised an eyebrow.
‘An inch deeper and he might’ve died. Some accounts tell of the alchemist using his mind to control the General’s soldiers. One of the soldiers attacked the General with his axe. They were all found dead. The alchemist went missing.’
Denton suppressed the urge to smile. ‘Mind control?’ he said. ‘Sounds like some crazy Nazi experi — never mind.’
‘The alchemist escaped to Tibet, where he continued to study his skystone. The General came for him years later, invading the country to kill him. But he never found the alchemist. Or the skystone.’
‘The alchemist died?’ Sievers said. ‘I don’t understand the point of your ramblings—’